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Asexual Awareness Week: My Story

So this week is Asexuality Awareness Week and I decided to share my journey into realising, understanding and accepting my asexuality.

I’m going to be honest it took me a really long time to even figure out I wasn’t straight. The main reason was because I thought sexual attraction was aesthetic attraction. And the fact that I had never heard of asexuality before not until I really got into Tumblr and saw more LGBTQIA+ posts. I had only really known of three sexual orientations, which were gay, straight or bisexual. It wasn’t until Tumblr that I discovered the wide range of sexualities.

I realised I was asexual around the age of 17. It was end of 2014, beginning of 2015. During this time I had been in my first ever relationship for at least 2 years. I won’t go into much detail about the relationship, it’s over, we don’t talk anymore. I’ve moved on. For a while I had seen a few asexuality posts on my Tumblr Dashboard. I read them as I scrolled past but I never really took much notice in them. But then I started to become uncomfortable with things in my relationship that I used to be okay with. I became uncomfortable with kissing, cuddling, just any forms of PDA.

I remember when I started questioning my sexuality, I’m not going to lie to myself anymore back then I pictured myself kissing both boys and girls. But I never really saw anything sexual (or even romantic, which I would discover would mean me being aromantic) in it. The moment I truly questioned myself was when I discovered the definition of aesthetic attraction. Me, being the uneducated naive 17 year old I was, sent an anonymous question to one of the asexuality blogs on Tumblr. Thinking back to it it was probably one of their frequently asked questions, which I’m sorry about. But I was nervous in discovering who I truly was. I guess my main question was can I still maintain this relationship I’m in even though I’m asexual?

I remember the moment clear as day when I accepted myself as asexual. I was walking to school one day and I got about halfway down the hill that’s just outside and I was thinking about things. And I suddenly went (to myself in my thoughts) “I’m asexual”. I have a terrible memory but this is one that is etched into my brain. And then comes the struggle of maintaining the one and only relationship I ever had. As days went on I grew more confident with myself as an asexual person. I’d even had the courage to come out to one of my closest friends at the time (long story). And it was this moment my relationship went downhill, in my opinion. Of course it had it’s ups and downs before but my coming out I think really hit the mark of where our relationship wasn’t working. Because in that respect we were totally different people. And because of it we slowly fell apart.

Now I’ve accepted myself as asexual 110%. I realise now that everything I felt towards someone else was aesthetic attraction. That I appreciated their looks and that was about it. I own my asexuality and I hope to help people in discovering their own. Finding other asexuals is a rarity to be honest but when you find another one it’s such an amazing moment. Because you finally realise that you aren’t alone, that there are people like you, and that you aren’t broken.

So happy Asexuality Awareness Week to my amazing aces and acespec. I hope you have a wonderful week. And you embrace your ace. Also eats lots of cake and have a party with some dragons.